"She's my life line," conductor Paul Kimball said. "It's a huge job. She's not like just another player. She's leader of the violin section. Just through her sheer playing, that's what the orchestra sounds like."

Using small gestures with her instrument or body and alterations in breathing or expression, Miller sets the proper tone for the St. John's Chamber Festival Orchestra's 16 string players.

She's the concertmaster.

"It's probably more like a team captain because I'm one of the players," said Miller, who teaches violin and chamber music at University of the Pacific. "Rather than being a coach. It's mostly nonverbal communication. At key moments, a lot of it is intuitive."

Miller employs that intuition Sunday, helping Kimball lead the 28-member orchestra as the 12th annual festival concludes at St. John's Anglican Church in Stockton.

On Friday, Kimball conducts a 36-voice chorus through a 75-minute pops concert that includes five soloists and a medley from "Les Miserables." Manteca pianist Tom Coyon is the accompanist.

"If you haven't heard it and you hear it once, you'll decide it's your favorite piece of music," said Kimball, 50, a Lincoln High School teacher who's in his seventh year as festival conductor.

Miller, the festival orchestra's concertmaster in 2011 who performed with her Pacific-based Trio 180 in 2012, is one of Kimball's favorites.

"Oh, my god," he said. "She's a world-class violinist. Stockton's own virtuoso player. It's great to have someone like Ann who lives and teaches in our town. I love having her in there."

Miller, 31, is more modest and deferential, despite her level of responsibility as a sort of assistant conductor. It's very detailed and demanding duty.

"In the midst of a piece," she might inhale, make eye contact or "slightly raise the scroll of the instrument slowly" to indicate adjustments in tempo, tone or intensity.

"Through sounds, as well as the way she plays physically, other players look to the concertmaster for directions," Miller said.

Lead players in other instrumental sections depend more on the conductor.

"She's the assistant conductor," said Kimball, who plays brass instruments, too. "She's definitely the main person I communicate with on musical questions. You can't miss the fact we're communicating back and forth. You can't help but notice we're doing it."

Miller's been mastering these skills for 27 years.

Born in Clarksville, Md., Miller benefited from a mother (Letitia, a teacher) who played piano, "majored in music and believed it's an important part of education." Ann has two older brothers. Dad Eugene was an engineer.

She started playing violin and piano at 4 and consistently has performed her way into out-front roles: "I practiced a lot. But I had a pretty normal childhood."

An athlete in high school ("I broke a couple of fingers"), Miller settled on violin at 13: "I just had an affinity for (it). I was attracted to the warmth of the sound."

After beginning at Atholton High in Columbia, Md., Miller graduated from Baltimore School for the Arts.

An affinity for chamber music helped lead her to a "wonderful experience" at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She moved on to New York's Juilliard School, earning a master's degree and completing her doctorate in 2010 after being hired at Pacific.

"I really enjoyed the people who would be my future colleagues," she said of the Pacific vibe. "I liked the environment."

An assistant professor, Miller said her students are "very passionate about their music. I also think our roles as musicians are changing in the sense that now we have to find new ways to meet audiences."

Miller joined Kimball's project when Warren van Bronkhorst, a valued Stockton classical music veteran, "decided to step down (in 2011)," Miller said. "He was kind enough to give Paul my name. It was exciting to have the opportunity to do it."

Kimball's happy, too.

"She's gonna decide," he said. "She'll do it - artistically - the way she feels. She's gonna decide exactly how we're doing it. If she has a big solo, she can mess with that."